This invention relates generally to a dental articulator, and more particularly to improvements in the coupling portions of the articulator and to a method for achieving said improvements.
Attempts to develop useful instrumentation to follow mandibular movements through all its positions and excursions are manifold. The movements of the mandible are three dimensional with right and left articular elements performing similar or dissimilar movement depending on anatomical form and the functions performed. Since the two joints are interconnected, movement in one joint will have an effect on its counterpart.
The chief determinants for rebuilding the patient's occlusion with fidelity are the recording and transferring of the motions of the mandible from the patient to the dental articulator used in such rebuilding.
Dental articulators fall into five general categories according to the function:
a. Simple hinge which opens and closes. PA1 b. Semi-adjustable which hinges and also performs protrusive and lateral movements which are guided by average settings. PA1 c. Adjustable articulators which utilize intra-oral positional jaw records from the patient in centric and eccentric positions to set straight line guiding surfaces or cams in the articulator. PA1 d. Adjustable articulators with extra-oral pantographic tracings in which the entire tracings are used to set the appropriate articulator. PA1 e. Adjustable articulator utilizing intra-oral molded pathways which are then transferred to an articulator by molding condylar pathways in the articulator.
The aforementioned earlier methods are faulty either in their inability to capture the three dimensional aspects in recording the data, or in the manipulative difficulties with the articulator's acceptance of the records, or in the transfer of the patient's dental models to the articulator in proper three dimensional orientation to the records. The customized analogs, however, give a closer approximation to the action of the patient's own mandibular joints than do the mechanically adjustable joints or those with average settings.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide an improved, customized analog of reproducing the action of a dental patient's temporomandibular joints.
It is another object of this invention to provide an analog customized for an individual dental patient which may be readily and simply assembled as a dental articulator to reproduce the motion of the patient's temporomandibular joints.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved method of forming an accurate analog of a dental patient's temporomandibular joint.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method an apparatus for forming an analog of a temporomandibular joint and accurately relating the patient's dental working model in the assembly of the dental articulator.
These objects and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description.